


[The Lambda Plan]

by this-caring-lark (firstimecaller)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Post-His Last Vow, That Damn Tarmac Scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:44:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 12,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3676122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstimecaller/pseuds/this-caring-lark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For John, Sherlock sacrificed his liberty by shooting Magnussen. Mycroft writes the ultimate fix-it, and Mary is not invited. Eventual Johnlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Will Be Fine

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm late to the S3 fix-it party, but I just couldn't leave the tarmac scene alone. It has never sat well with me. From Sherlock's apparently genuine, "that's my girl," to his seemingly planned, but absolutely rubbish "Sherlock is a girl's name" joke, none of it makes sense if you believe, as apparently we're meant to, that both John and Sherlock (or at least, Sherlock) expect that this is the last time they will see one another. One or both of them has to believe otherwise.  
> 
> Infinite appreciation to Ariane DeVere for her thorough HLV transcripts, which are the source of all the spoken tarmac dialogue. Not beta'd or britpicked except by me, and I welcome corrections and constructive criticism. And comments, oh lord do I ever love comments. 
> 
> I own no part of BBC's Sherlock or its characters and am grateful to those who created them.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part I

"Are you sure about this, Sherlock?"

"Yes, for the last time, Mycroft, I am certain. Put me on the damn plane."

"You'll have to see him before boarding. Mary too, most like. A departure without a farewell would appear amiss."

"Yes, I understand that. It will be fine."

"Think carefully about what you wish to say. We have to assume she is watching you both very closely."

"I blew out Magnussen's brains, Mycroft, not my own. I said it will be fine, and it will."

Mycroft winced, earning an eye-roll from Sherlock. "So be it, brother mine. Your performance need not last long."

Sherlock nodded once, smoothing down his jacket as he prepared to leave the holding cell. Standing on the other side of the concrete threshold, Mycroft unconsciously mirrored the gesture with his waistcoat and waited for the guard to lead the way down the overbright corridor.


	2. A Macadam Slip

After Magnussen dropped to the ground and Sherlock dropped to his knees, after the helicopter dropped to the grass and the tac team dropped their rifles, Sherlock was bundled into the ubiquitous dark car, hardly surprised that Mycroft had managed to arrive there first. Ubiquity was rather a theme this evening.

"Mycroft, I--"

"Not here, Sherlock. Not yet."

"What will happen to John? You have to know he had no idea. Quick frankly I had no idea until--"

"NOT HERE, Sherlock." A pause. "John will not be charged. He will be debriefed, of course, or at least he will believe he has been debriefed, and then he will be returned to the bosom of his loving wife. Just as you intended."

The last words were unmistakably ironic, but then Mycroft sighed, and for once the sound held no condescension, no sarcasm, no irony. It was the same soul-tired sigh Sherlock had last heard before the beginning of his most recent (final) rehabilitation "holiday". It was the sigh of someone accustomed to making his own chances who suspects that his luck has run out.

After that, Sherlock expected a long and silent ride into London and an MI5 holding cell. He was half right. Twenty minutes from Appledore, the car completed a smooth sweep around a long blind curve, and the driver immediately pulled off the road at an unmarked turn-off where Anthea waited in tree shadow next to an identical vehicle. Sherlock wordlessly followed his brother out of the first car while Anthea simultaneously handed off to Mycroft keys to the second. Without breaking stride, Anthea slid gracefully into the recently vacated rear seat as Mycroft slid behind the steering column of the waiting car. As soon as her door closed, the chauffeured vehicle drove away on an unmarked dirt lane. Sherlock quickly ducked into the second car's passenger seat as Mycroft shut himself in and eased back onto the road. The exchange had taken less than ten seconds, and just as the fourth tyre made contact with the mac, the first of their escort vehicles rounded the blind turn behind, and the whirr of helicopter blades was once again audible in the near distance.

"Oh, well managed, Mycroft. Bravo."

"We needed to talk, brother mine. I trust my driver with my life, but this is rather...more. Please understand, this is not a daring rescue; our destination is the same. You will be a guest of Her Majesty on this evening and for an undefined future period."

"Oh fantastic, perhaps I'll palm another ashtray."

"Normally your levity would annoy me, dear brother, but I haven't the energy and we haven't much time; please pay attention.

"Sherlock, I fear that you have once again accelerated events beyond your ken, beyond your reckoning. I take responsibility -- my warnings were all easily waved away, the inanities of a meddling older brother--"

"One moment, Mycroft, what warnings?"

"Sherlock, I...Sherlock, why did I not attend John's wedding?"

"You never attend social events where your image could be captured unless you've choreographed them yourself...you spurn sentiment, of which a wedding is the very zenith...you dislike pastry that comes in only single servings...and you don't really care for John overmuch?"

"Two for four, Sherlock, but I would have made an exception for the first and the second, because the fourth is patently not true. I am ignoring the third -- profiteroles en masse from a Hackney caterer? Dreadful.

"No, Sherlock, I'm afraid that neither a fear of photography (however well-deserved at that function) nor an aversion to Doctor Watson were the cause of my absence. Let me just say that, although I had no knowledge of your inventive if small-minded Mayfly Man's presence at the event, I was well-aware that a killer, and one with a vested interest in my demise, was a guaranteed attendee."

For the first time since executing a man in cold blood, Sherlock felt sick.

"Mary”, he whispered.

"Oh good, you're catching me up. Tell me, was one of those antediluvian wedding telegrams from --"

"Oh God. ‘CAM’.”

"Yes, I thought so. I imagine it mentioned family?"

"'Wish your family could have seen this....'"

"How very nice. Yes, I may be wrong, but I think it was intended to give her a goad, or possibly even the go ahead, to top me off if the opportunity presented. I doubt he truly thought I'd attend, but Magnussen did so love a good joke and the old nudge nudge wink wink. I didn't imagine he'd resist the chance."

"The telegram. He called her...poppet."

"'Poppet', how clever. Etymologically the equivalent of 'puppet', as you are no doubt aware. Always thumbing his nose from the corner, he was.

"So then, yes. We have known about Mary for some time. Now before you magick up another firearm for my head, please understand that we did not learn the truly objectionable details of her past until after she and John were well into their relationship. According to our early intelligence, which we now know was cunningly DIY'd by our late friends Moriarty & Co., she was legitimately retired from the CIA and enjoying a quiet afterlife. As soon as I learned of the less savoury entries on her C.V., we increased surveillance on both Doctor Watson and his fiancée. And that is how we learned that Magnussen not only knew about Mary, but planned to use her as leverage to get to me. Directly or indirectly."

"When did you discover this? Before or after I returned?"

"Before, very shortly before I began seeking you out in Eastern Europe. It was a strong motivator. Learning she was a former freelance assassin was troubling, but on the heels of that revelation, we realized that she either had worked for or hired Moriarty. This raised the threat level substantially. Her proximity to John could of course have been a coincidence, but...well."

"No such thing, 'rarely that lazy', yes yes. Get on with it, Mycroft, you haven't even told me the _plan_."

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed. ”What makes you so confident there _is_ a plan, Sherlock? Your assassinating an international media mogul in plain view of British armed security forces was not exactly among my alphabet of options. There's no Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, or Plan Zed for these circumsta--"

Sherlock interrupted Mycroft with a look and a snort. "Dear, dear brother, you know more languages than God Almighty. If you did not already have a strategy established in your native Alpha Bravo Charlies, I am certain you had at least a skeleton of one worked out in something less Latin."

Any combination of "brother" and "dear" was always sarcastic between them, and yet Mycroft knew that Sherlock's faith in his contingency skills was both genuine and well-founded, and Mycroft was minutely comforted by Sherlock's fraternal certainty. He almost smiled as he answered.

"Fine. Until you drugged the punch, responding to my brother's possible Magnussencide was a lowly Plan Lambda."

If Sherlock's color heightened, the darkness of the car hid the evidence. _Was that a nudge, Mycroft? Is now really the time for such subtleties?_ Reining himself into a familiarly bored drawl, Sherlock quietly demanded: "Well then, go on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_symbols#Lambda
> 
> A bit ham-handed of Mycroft and therefore of me too, but I can see Mycroft being both that subtle and that overt. Not to tease, but to signal recognition. It was that or Plan You're in Love with John Watson and We Both Know It. Not as catchy.


	3. That's My Girl

Five stood on the tarmac, a grim line of dark neutrals spiked with the riot red of Mary's coat. Sherlock wasn't surprised when she took the initiative to seal their parting with cheek kisses, but he was damned if she would set the script.  _I'm writing this one, Mary, follow along now_ : "You will look after him for me, won't you?"

"Oh, don't worry.  I'll keep him in trouble."

"That's my girl."   _Oh she is good_ , he thought, the bile held back by a few resilient threads of unforced respect. He would never fully forgive himself for not seeing A.G.R.A. in Mary, but all the same he could not wholly blame himself either. Her dissimulation was so perfect, the seams were barely there even when you were looking for them. 

Janine's roughly improvised "I'm the only one who really knows what you're like”, and "solve me a crime, Sherlock Holmes" were ham-fisted panto compared to the acting chops of “Mrs. Mary M. Watson”. His stomach dipped at the recollection of Magnussen's offhand boast, "Janine managed it once”” and he was glad that she was safely in Sussex and that Magnussen was safely incinerated. His mind flashed to John's indignation at the lift-side engagement, and he wondered if John would be relieved to learn that he and Janine had mutually engineered the sham -- a cover story as she inched him towards the necessary CAM back channels while writing herself a carte blanche exposé -- or if John’s reaction was the momentary face of a deeper, more intimate disappointment. _The final proof, the final disappointment that I am indeed a machine?_ _Or could he actually have been…could he actually feel…._

He turned to his brother. "Since this is likely to be the last conversation I'll have with John Watson, would you mind if we took a moment?" He registered the flash of surprise (worry?) in Mycroft's face. It lived so close to the surface now.  _That's down to me._  

 


	4. Catching Up

Mycroft continued. "In truth, we are further along than you realized. As ever, I suppose. But then again, blind faith was never one of your failings.

"I know it was Mary who shot you. We both know she wanted Magnussen out of the frame, and had done for some time. I suspect she would not have wept for your death either, but I do not believe she anticipated your intervention that evening in Magnussen's offices. Actually, I know for certain she did not, because she accused me of throwing sand in her face in the form of one Sherlock Holmes. Preposterous, but I'm sure your adventure did seem perplexingly coeval from her point of view...."

"Mycroft, you're practically babbling. Are you saying that --"

"That I encouraged Mary to terminate Charles Augustus Magnussen and extracted from her the last of her Moriarty intel? That I granted her amnesty for these and any crimes over which I had jurisdictional influence in exchange for her commitment to disappear into the shadows from whence she came? That you have demonstrated a _capital_ , and truly, I do mean capital and mind-bogglingly unfailing proficiency for tossing spanners into each and every plan I have carefully crafted largely for your benefit? Oh yes, I absolutely am saying that. And dying, Sherlock! Aren't you weary of it by now? Next time you wish to take a holiday to the afterlife, do give me a running start. 

"Now, may I continue with telling you the things you need to know, instead of things you should already have worked out for yourself?"

Sherlock fell silent, a clipped nod the only response. He watched the home counties slip past and thought about John’s last words beating through the helicopter din: _Christ, Sherlock. Oh Christ, Sherlock. Christ, Sherlock. Oh Christ, Sherlock._ Disbelief in catechism. Stations of the cross. 

But Mycroft hadn’t even asked him why he’d done it. 

Of course not. 

_He knows._

 


	5. That's the Whole of It

Mycroft and the heavy moved away from the John-Sherlock nucleus, toward the plane. Mary stood slightly apart, and Sherlock assumed she was in position to read their lips or had bugged her husband. He wished her well of her deductions. 

John kept looking about him as if the desolate runway would suddenly warm into something dynamic and wild, but the grey green landscape remained fixed and dull. Sherlock could see the gears grinding, more benign than the struggle that had animated John’s face on the night A.G.R.A. was revealed, less conflicted than their stand-off in the holding room, but nonetheless painful to watch. After several seconds it resolved into John’s rather anti-climactic, "So, here we are."  

_Honestly John, that really doesn't give me much to go on.  Very well, we'll stick with The Plan._ "William Sherlock Scott Holmes."

"Sorry?"

"That's the whole of it -- if you're looking for baby names."   _In comedy they call this a call-back. Do you remember, John Hamish Watson?  How you barked at us your little joke, such a petty interruption it seemed at the time. Was it jealousy overwhelming you so suddenly that you forfeited both our guessing game and your own pretense of amusement? So guileless and so spiteful allatonce, and I remember that frisson, having nothing to do with The Woman’s preposterous flirtation. But not all jealousy is born from love. How can I divine the source of yours?_

"No, we've had a scan. We're pretty sure it's a girl."  

_Yes, yes, I know. That's what makes it funny. Hold up for the punchline._  "Oh. Okay."

"Yeah." More twisting, more reaching for the horizon. "Actually, I can't think of a single thing to say."  

_You’re lying, and it doesn't matter. I begrudge you nothing._

"No, neither can I."   _I’m lying too, John. Don't I do it awfully well? So much better than --_

John pulled himself up, his focus returned, his purpose. "The game is over."  

_\--you do. Oh. Now that is interesting. So Captain Watson won the battle, and we're feigning stiff upper lip carry on what what. Oh Captain, you'll regret it if we leave you on parade. Here's a bit of drama to puzzle over instead:_  "The game is never over, John...but there may be some new players now. It's okay. The East Wind takes us all in the end."

"What's that?"   _Excellent, Captain. Thank you for keeping up._

"It's a story my brother told me when we were kids.  The East Wind -- this terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path.  It seeks out the unworthy...and plucks them from the Earth."   _Did you get that Mary?  No of course not, why would I be warning you?  You're_ my girl _._

_Careful, Sherlock. Too close. Recalibrate._ "That was generally me." 

"Nice."

"He was a rubbish big brother."  John’s smiling again.   _Ah, there you are, Doctor Watson.  My doctor.  Yes, now's the time. Go on, John, ask me. Mary's waiting._

 


	6. The Lambda Plan (I)

London was still a good 45 minutes away when Mycroft began to explain Plan Lambda. 

"As far as the goldfish know, Magnussen has died from a massive coronary event. As far as Mummy and Father know, they (along with Mary, John, and Mr. Wiggins) kipped from too much Christmas goose while you hared off to points unknown and got yourself a little too unbored to return to the family manse. I will sort them out once the dust settles. 

"Mary is the question mark. John will be permitted -- or should I say, encouraged -- to disclose to her the basics, that you dispatched Magnussen to protect their family. Does she know that I am aware that she fatally wounded you? I assume so. Does she know I still intend to send her back to the shadows? Unclear. You've eliminated my key leverage there, of course, but I am not without other simple machines. I would rather not share those details with you now, as there is nothing you can do to assist other than play the part of the martyr and earnest family friend. Whether or not Mary believes that you and John have truly forgiven her, let us continue to act as though you have."

"Hold on, Mycroft. Where is John in all of this? He has forgiven her, I gave him every reason to do so, told him to really, and removed all obstacles to that outcome. If Mary is all you say, should we not warn him?"

"Trust me, little brother. I care almost as much about Doctor Watson's well-being as do you, and I have no intention of allowing Mary Morstan or any other black-hatted villain to harm him physically in any way. I cannot vouch for his emotional health by the time this is all played out, but I am committed to preserving his bodily safety for the duration. We have evaluated Mary stringently, albeit from afar, and there is strong consensus among the best of my profilers and psych wonks that despite her checkered past and present, Mary's purported affections for John are as genuine as any of which she is capable, and she will not harm him as long as her claim on him is not threatened. Perversely, and as much as it thwarted my very tidy set-up, your dismissal of Magnussen with extreme prejudice probably did quite a bit of good in assuring Mary that she can retain her fantasy life as Mrs. John H. Watson without further Holmesian influence. We will trade heavily on that assurance in the coming weeks, even as we watch closely for any sign that it is faltering."

Sherlock considered his brother's words for a full minute, staring out at the reflective lines on the motorway. "I suppose this won't be the first time John's been kept in the dark for a greater purpose…." Sherlock nervously finished the thought to himself, _but I hope to God you're right that there is one._

Mycroft exhaled heavily, relieved at his brother's tacit acceptance of The Plan thusfar. The penumbra of London's lights had come into view as their conversation lulled. "Quite."

 


	7. I Think It Could Work

Plan Lambda. _Has John been to Edinburgh? Focus, Sherlock._

"So what about you, then?  Where are you actually going now?"

_Well done you, the right question. Heads up Mary._  "Oh, some undercover work in Eastern Europe."

"For how long?"   _Ah, thought so. He has chosen to believe that this is temporary, but he suspects it isn't meant to be. The soldier's faith in a soldier's return, with certain knowledge that it may all end tomorrow. Correct._

"Six months, my brother estimates.  He's never wrong."   _He's never wrong, Mary. Six months and one or both of us will be dead for real or for show._

"And then what?"

"Who knows?"

Giving Mary sufficient hints to intuit his near end, without giving John enough of the story to damn his peace of mind, were the core tenets of Sherlock's part of The Plan. He hoped that in these few lines he had planted enough darkness to steer Mary in the right (wrong) direction.

_And now for the punchline. Dear God this was funnier in my head in an MI5 cell._  "John, there's something...I should say. I...I've meant to say always and then never have."   _Damn my brain, how juvenile it gets in closed spaces and on hard surfaces. This was a terrible idea. He's going to be livid. One day._  

"Since it's unlikely we'll ever meet again--"  _That's for you, Mary. John, eyes on me._  "--I might as well say it now." 

Sigh. Beat. 

"Sherlock is actually a girl's name."   _John, you have my permission to punch me for that when we are laughing about this, months hence. We will I swear it._

But John’s face did not cloud with annoyance. He smiled, a real smile, already laughing before Sherlock even finished the sentence, shaking his head with -- _is that relief?_  

"It's not."

_Bless you I did not deserve that._ "It was worth a try."

"We're not naming our daughter after you."

"I think it could work."   _Good Lord this is getting tedious.  Time to go._

He removed his glove and reached out his hand. They rarely stood this far apart, and it felt  strange to have to extend his arm so far. It must have been strange to John as well, because he stared at the bare hand before him for what seemed like ages, chin tucked up and fist clenched in unconscious agitation.

_Is he waiting for more comic relief? Another quip to take us off the hook? A_  deus ex machina  _to swoop in and make this all less final, less surreal? I'm sorry, John, no gods will be popping out of cakes today. Take my hand, John, just in case._

"To the very best of times, John."

He waited for another second, and Sherlock watched with compassion as the many faces of John H. Watson fought for prominence. He was fully Captain Watson again as he took the offered hand, but he softened into John, his John, his firelit John, by the time their grips relaxed.

With a final cape-flare of Belstaff, Sherlock boarded the plane.


	8. Recall

Mycroft's call sincerely had surprised him, but he recovered by the time the plane landed. The heavy was still very much on the job as Sherlock descended the jet stair.  _No reprieve, then._ He was shuffled into Mycroft's waiting Jag and barely managed a glance toward John, who had pulled away from Mary and was looking hopeful and expectant and like the Earth had returned to its axis from a brief and foolish lark too many degrees off course. As the car pulled away, Sherlock focused his assessing gaze on Mary through the 5% tint. She looked ready to push the damn planet right back off kilter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part I. 
> 
> Part II is written and will follow after a few wrinkles are ironed out.


	9. A Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part II begins

After Magnussen dropped to the ground and Sherlock dropped to his knees, after the helicopter dropped to the grass and the tac team dropped their rifles, John was bundled into the otherwise empty back seat of a ubiquitous dark car. His phone rang. Seeing the familiar "Mike”, he answered.

"Mycroft, what the hell. I--"

"No time, John, he'll be with me in seconds. I will meet you back in London after your official debriefing. No one expects you to know anything. Do not disappoint them."

"What will happen to Sherlock? You have to know he had no idea that you and I--"

"NOT NOW." A pause. "This...this act, what Sherlock did...it was always a possibility. I have a plan, and you will learn your part in time. Wiggins has shepherded Mary back to your flat. She knows you are safe, that Sherlock is in custody. She will not be surprised that you are late returning to the connubial home. I will be in touch, John."

After that, John expected a long and silent ride into London and an MI5 debriefing room, which is just what he got. 

Was it all for nothing? Weeks of cloak and dagger meetings with Mycroft while Sherlock convalesced in hospital, weeks of avoiding anything more than the barest civility when at work with Mary, except for calculated gregariousness in front of the NHS techs during the 12- and 20-week scans. _God if Sherlock could have seen how I melted when I heard that heartbeat, how I softened just enough to give Mary hope but not enough to let her forget she was still the penitent. David’s little miracle, poor godforsaken lamb. And by the 20-week scan, the litany of questions I asked as any first time father would, with or without a medical degree, and the way her face lit up at how goddamned_ involved _I was, how she could sense that reconciliation was days away, how she exerted herself to keep triumph off her traitorous goddamn face. What a set-up, what a trap, and for what? So Sherlock bloody Holmes could cowboy his way into the Idiot Hall of Fame and turn the whole thing to cinders with a single goddamn match._

His face was in his hands now, and he shook his head slowly back and forth to shut out the looping image of Sherlock, teeth bared, arm rigid, curls wracked by helicopter wind, _pulling pulling pulling the trigger of my gun_. It was to John's credit that he spared no thoughts for self-recrimination about the gun he'd brought to Appledore or the wife he'd brought into their lives. The weeks with Mycroft had disabused him of any self-importance on that score. Mary had targeted him, at least initially, and it wasn't John's fault that he hadn't seen A.G.R.A. in her, no more than it was Sherlock's fault for wanting them to be happy, or believing they could be.

John leaned back and jutted his chin forward. The early moonlight fell on Home County fields, glowing strangely through the tinted windows. He thought ahead to the promised meeting with Mycroft and anticipated how Sherlock's wild gambit would affect the plans they had made. He pondered the possibilities more as an intellectual exercise than a practical one; his time with the elder Holmes brother had cemented his certain knowledge that in this as in most things, he would have no thoughts that were novel to Mycroft, and no better strategy than the one Mycroft revised. There was comfort in that, if he was honest. After a few minutes of speculation, he turned his thoughts to the wife with whom he had reconciled a few hours previous and the script he had followed to do it. _Will Mycroft really send me back there? Will she be made bold by Magnussen's death, made comfortable?_

 _Oh Sherlock, you monumental nutter._ It had been difficult, unexpectedly difficult, to see the proud man's face fall when the secret of the erstwhile vaults was unveiled. At the moment of Magnussen’s reveal, John had known it didn't truly matter -- that Mycroft had everything well in hand, that Mary's secrets were in no way precious cargo -- but Sherlock didn't, and John could see what it cost the great ego to realize his mistake. John had endured Magnussen's physical sadism, not for Mary's sake, but to give Sherlock time to regroup. He couldn't have anticipated Sherlock's next move, but he couldn't have reassured the man sufficiently to deter it either, not while abiding by the strictures of Mycroft’s plan.

Mycroft was insisting on keeping him and Sherlock in absolute knowledge silos. John had never disagreed before, but now he saw the vacuum that the knowledge differential had created, how the gap had invited a Sherlockian _grande geste_ and precluded a smooth exit. For the first time since his best friend executed a man in cold blood, John felt sick. The unease that had lived in his spine ever since his first post-Leinster Gardens meeting with Mycroft bloomed into nausea and rage. _We could have avoided this, Mycroft. A little less cloak and dagger, a little more fraternal transparency. And now his best friend was a murderer. Goddamn it, Mycroft!_

He closed his eyes and let the engine’s purr hone his jagged thoughts into something that could fuel him through the next phase. By the time London's glorious light pollution had overwhelmed the proud moon, John’s latent rage had eclipsed the calm of his initial shock. He walked into the debriefing room at a low boil.


	10. Fucking Banter

Five stood on the tarmac, a grim line of dark neutrals spiked with the riot red of Mary's coat. John felt a slight pulse of surprise when she took the initiative to seal Sherlock's farewell with cheek kisses, but it dissipated immediately. Something as mild as "surprise" had a very brief half-life when Mary was involved. What truly stunned him, albeit briefly, was Sherlock, who returned her air kisses with the smooth gentility of a society toff and practically cooed at her, "You will look after him for me, won't you?"  _Jesus fucking Christ, Sherlock. Why am I still the only one acting like a human being here?_

"Oh, don't worry.  I'll keep him in trouble."   _How fucking dare you_ , John thought, swallowing back the bile that had risen in his gorge at how quickly, how cheekily, she was bantering. _Fucking_ bantering _._

"That's my girl."   _He's shipping off to what he can only assume is a fucking suicide mission, and he's acting like they'll be dishing over the tabloids after his fortnight in Ibiza. Jesus fucking Christ._

 _Wait..."acting"?_ Often, Sherlock's inability to navigate normal human interactions or display even bog-standard emotions caused John's guts to twist, just as his uncanny ability to emulate perfectly those same emotions when it served his own (usually case-oriented) ends sometimes gave John a hollow, lonely feeling. For the ghost of a moment, John allowed himself to believe that the cheek kisses and atta girls were part of the latter, a performance, and that Sherlock had not resigned himself to exeunt stage left while The Watson Family carried on its ham-fisted panto of domesticity.  _What a tender world that would be,_ he thought. _But Mycroft would have told me._

He looked up at Sherlock expectedly.  _What now?_

Sherlock turned to his brother.  "Since this is likely to be the last conversation I'll have with John Watson, would you mind if we took a moment?" John registered the flash of surprise (worry?) in Mycroft's face.  _Calm yourself, Mycroft. I won't let on._


	11. Whitehall

The debriefing had been as much of a joke as he had anticipated, but knowing the emptiness of the procedures didn’t dull the rage that had been building since the car from Appledore. When he crossed the threshold into Mycroft’s office, he was already in certain danger of striking the man.  He could feel his spine turning to steel, the chill of it and the unbending posture, and he knew that the only way to arrest his fist before it crashed into Mycroft's ruddy jaw was to assault him with words instead. 

 “Well finally, if it isn’t MYCROFT FUCKING HOLMES. WHAT THE FUCK WAS--  HOW COULD YOU LET--”

Mycroft did not indulge John's lapse with even a raised brow, but his eyes flashed like signal flares warning careless sailors away from gutting rocks, though John suspected that Mycroft would gladly have dashed him against any crushing surface if it would repair the hole in Magnussen's head or wipe the memories of every eye, human and digital, that had seen it explode. John saw the flash and suspended his tirade long enough for a proper sitrep. It had felt bloody fantastic just to hurl a swear or two at that patrician face, but he knew very well that Mycroft was not the real enemy. 

Himself exhaled a classic Mycroftian sigh, a masterpiece of condescension and disappointment, layered around an anti-matter core of something much more volatile.  If John had not grown so accustomed to the condescension and the disappointment, he might not have noticed the threat at the centre, but he had heard that tone lowered on Sherlock too many times not to catch the difference. Even as Mycroft began to unspool his warnings in a low monotonous rumble of Received Pronunciation, John felt his spine thaw back into bone and fluid. He had trusted Mycroft this far and would continue to trust him, but damn the man his composure.

"Lower your voice, John, unless you wish to be forcibly removed.  This is Whitehall, not Baker Street, and if you think that I will let you speak to me in that way in the _sanctum sanctorum_ of Her Majesty's civil service, you have severely overestimated both your own importance and my patience.  It is quite bad enough to have spent four years observing you and my brother flop about each other like witless Labradors, but to see this absurdist comedy fumble its way to such a bloody, useless climax is almost more than I can manage.  And I have managed _worlds_.  So you will settle, John, you will sit and settle and listen, and if I choose to permit you to do so, you will ask your questions only after I am quite, quite done explaining to you exactly how this is going to go.  I am not going to ask you if that is alright, or if you understand, or if you would like to say anything before I begin, because I know unequivocally that it is not, that you don't, and that I could not care any less right now about anything you could possibly vocalise."

He couldn't look at John. The Labrador comment was more than he had intended to say, in form if not substance, and he could not lose any more of his control. _Two minutes into this interview, and I’ve already revealed more discomfiture than in the entire ride with my-brother-the-just-turned-murderer._ Mycroft centred himself.  He pulled the glass stopper out of the ever-full decanter, and poured amber into two tumblers.  Placing one of them indifferently on the desk in front of the now-occupied guest chair, he stepped evenly around to his own seat, and eased down with an economical grace as his elbow bent to shorten the distance between the glass and his lips.

In the many years in which he had been observing his brother and Doctor Watson, he had imagined sharing with John portions of what he was about to say.  He had thought of it often, how rewarding it might be to see the dawning understanding crease John's brow, and how intriguing it might be to learn whether the next seconds would yield a lightening hope or a deepening confusion, or even (the least likely, but very much still possible) an ugly, unworthy disgust. He came closest that night after the pool. John had just been relieved of a jacket of Semtex, and Mycroft reasoned that if John was not already aware of what he meant to Sherlock, that evening's circumstances would surely have, at minimum, opened John's mind, no matter how inconceivable the notion had previously been. Nothing like mutual life-saving from a madman to broaden one's romantic horizons.

Mycroft had deduced Sherlock's feelings almost from the beginning, had seen Sherlock's shock-blanket-wrapped epiphany outside Roland Kerr Further Education College and known, or believed, that it was the first of many a painful a-ha moment for his awkward brother.  He had watched and waited and was certain, after some months, that Sherlock was, in his own unswerving, unnerving way, in love with John Watson. Once the pool incident passed and life at Baker Street went back to their version of normal, he was equally certain that John hadn't a clue that Sherlock felt this way, or could feel this way about anyone. Mycroft was less certain -- was himself frustratingly clueless, or perhaps swimming in too many conflicting clues -- about John's sentimental orientation.  He did not know whether a revelation about the nature of Sherlock's feelings would ease the path for something more...stable?...between the two men, or if it would bollocks up what was truly a beneficial friendship, one for which Mycroft was grateful every time he noticed another half-pound of weight on his brother's lean frame, or caught Sherlock's anxious, wordless check-ins with John after another lapse of tact. 

No matter how tempting it had been, before The Fall, to play a vexing cupid, and no matter how comforting it might have been to John, afterwards, the emotional risk to all involved had always been too great, his brother would not thank him for the indiscretion no matter how fortuitous the outcome, and it was not, in any event, any of Mycroft's business.  So he said nothing, and he continued, when the opportunity presented itself and with the desultory attention of a weekend hobbyist, to occasionally, but fruitlessly, attempt to divine the heart of a most extraordinarily ordinary man. Later, John's courtship with Mary, his engagement, his marriage, had seemed to unequivocally affirm Mycroft's past forbearance. Until she proved herself no less psychopathic than Moriarty, and John's reactions (in the brief moments when he was forthright, in those first post-Leinster Gardens meetings with Mycroft), had reminded Mycroft more of an operative whose hunch had been validated, rather than a civilian coping with heartbreak. 

At any rate, all of that dithering was part of a halcyon past completely shuttered from the current crisis. He could no longer afford to be delicate.  He could no longer take into account Sherlock's privacy or John's trust issues or his own distaste for involving himself in anything so irrational as the sentiments of two middle-aged men. Despite the hard line he had just delivered to John, he knew the man would not reliably cooperate unless he understood fully why Sherlock had done what he had, and there was no way to adequately convey that explanation without breaching the sacred topic of his brother's damnable feelings. 

At least they had some time.  Sherlock and Appledore would each be processed carefully, and a status report was not likely for several hours.  He could frame this disclosure in as rococo or stark a manner as he wished.  Mycroft considered.  He would do both: He would take the edge off with euphemism and then sharpen the blade and make clean cuts.  When he was finished, there would be no room for misunderstanding in even the dim, denying consciousness of John H. Watson.  Right then.  Onward. 

"Now, John.  I am going to tell you a fairy tale. Well, I say a fairy tale. It may really be a horror story. And then I am going to give you a choice.  Well, I say a choice.  It may not feel like one, because we are now well beyond 'cooperation'. We are in the land of orders and obedience. We have been partners these past many weeks, you and I, and I would like to think that we can be so again, but this is my plan and you'll have to step in line like any good soldier. Are we clear?"

John nodded, hands folded in his lap in the same configuration they would have been if behind his back on parade.

"First, the fairy tale. There once was a Creature with a heart of stone, who saw the world only in terms of empirical evidence and cost/benefit analysis. The Creature had few ties to creatures of like kind, and those were all ties of expedience or exigency. But then The Creature met someone, someone very different, and damaged. Quite without realizing it, but quite naturally, The Creature repeatedly made sacrifices for the benefit of this someone, and every time, more and more of the granite of The Creature’s heart turns to marble. It feels heat, it radiates warmth. The beneficiary of these sacrifices notices nothing. Finally, The Creature makes a sacrifice so outlandish and irrevocable that even this ignorant companion sees that something in the Creature has changed. And it is at this time that the Creature’s marble heart melts entirely into blood and sinew, and The Creature becomes — if you’ll pardon the trope — human. Unfortunately, the erstwhile Creature — now human, has shared none of the cause of this transformation with the object of those affections, who goes about his life as if the world is not a magical place and Creatures do not turn into human beings. The person formerly known as The Creature has gained a new heart just in time for it to break, as it is the tendency of human hearts to do.” 

Despite himself, despite his desire to barrel through the sticky bits of this disclosure, Mycroft paused for a moment to assess John's reaction.  Did he understand?  Could Mycroft skip the stinging blade, keep this discussion within the stiff-upper-lip safety of oblique metaphor?  One look at John's steady, curious face told him no, he did not understand. There was incipient comprehension, but no epiphany. _No, I have to do it.  This is going to smart._

“Sherlock is the Creature, John. Lord help us, you are the object of his affections. I am certain that his increasingly volatile behaviour is a result of his feelings for you, and that those are not merely the regard of one bosom friend for another, but rather something more. You can dismiss my intuition if you wish, but I have quite literally made observation of Sherlock Holmes my life’s work, and I am confident in my assessment, albeit mortified in the disclosure.”

  Throughout this tale, Mycroft had kept his gaze resolutely fixed on the now-empty glass in his hand. Pausing to switch gears from Brother Grimm to Aunt Agony, he looked up, his curiosity concerning John's reaction winning out over his desire to push through to the nuts and bolts portion of the evening. He shouldn't have been surprised by what he saw there. He had been sure that John did not know the depth of his brother's regard. He had tabulated all of John's probable responses and readied himself for denial, anger, incredulity, guilt. What he saw was none of these things, but it threatened to break into all of them with only a nudge. John's face was still, stoic, a soldier's posture fighting for command, the internal battle visible on his brow. It was his eyes that made Mycroft catch himself and veer off the intended narrative path. This was the look he'd half-expected but never seen, even after Mary's deceptions were unveiled piece by piece, even after the paternity of the child was taken from him. They were the eyes of a heartbroken, heartsick man. There was mourning there, and loss, and defeat, a hooded host of widowed emotions merging into an 1000 metre stare that went straight through the man currently clearing his throat across the desk.

"I'm sorry, John. Truly. I would so rather have been watching from the side-lines while Sherlock confessed these feelings to you. They are not mine to tell, I know that, and I would rather have hid my observations from both of you for as long as he, or you both, wished me to remain outside of this aspect of your lives.  But we've no more time for that tiptoeing approach.  You must understand why Sherlock pulled the trigger, why he will keep doing these reckless things, unless and until you speak to him, bring him back into orbit, give him back a sense of gravity and purpose that involves you, that is more than just feral loyalty and pack-instinct.  I do not know the state of your heart in this.  You'll laugh, but I have to congratulate you; you've evaded my deductions on this subject at every attempt.  It was maddening at first, not knowing, but then Sherlock went away and it did not matter as it once had.  And when he came back you were engaged, and so....You need not tell me, unless there is something, anything I can do to smooth your way in this."  

He expected John’s face to remain fixed in that 1000 metre stare, expected he might have to pull him back into focus. What he did not expect was a return of the rage that had animated the man on his first entry. Mycroft saw it now for what it was: flailing for understanding, compounded by a fevered fidelity, pushing past a cloud of doubt and hope and fear. He had always admired John’s resoluteness, but to be on the business end of it was almost unnerving, if Mycroft were ever unnerved.

John launched. “‘Smooth my way’, Mycroft? Smooth _my_ bloody way? What about Sherlock’s way, what about what we let him do tonight? If he’d known, if he’d known any of it, we might have avoided this, this bloodbath! You and me, we’re soldiers. There was blood on our hands from our first days of service, sometimes literally. But not Sherlock. You’ve always protected him, and I always took for granted that it was a priority for you to keep him above…to keep him above all of that. I don’t know what to do with your little disclosure right now. I don’t want to make light of it, and I’ll probably have a nervous breakdown within the hour, but right now I’d still like to know exactly how the hell you let this happen!”

Once again, Mycroft’s eyes flashed in warning, but John barely registered it. His blood was pounding. Adrenaline was still making his spine burn hot and cold, and his hands were balled so tightly his knuckles were threatening to break skin. Despite all of this, in the back of his racing thoughts, Mycroft’s words had begun to loop interminably:  _You are the object of his affections. His increasingly volatile behaviour is a result of his feelings for you. The object of his affections. His increasingly volatile behaviour. A result of his feelings for you._

Mycroft leaned back in his chair, allowing John’s anger to flare out, waiting for him to settle back into himself. When John’s ragged breathing became more regular, Mycroft continued, quietly:  "I do not owe you an explanation, John. I regret that the narrative has taken this turn, but I stand by my choice. I do not appreciate your questioning my decisions or my priorities.

“I know that Sherlock has considered you his conductor of light for several years, but let's not fool ourselves about your actual cerebral abilities.  You are intelligent enough to be a doctor, were once steady enough to be a surgeon, but never ambitious enough to have pursued a career in civilian medicine.  The Army sharpened your instincts but did nothing for your intellect, and locum and clinic work have collectively dulled your problem-solving skills down to 'viral or bacterial’, and 'does little Sophie have the grippe, or is it allergies?’  You flattered yourself once, years ago, that being Sherlock's assistant meant that you could do what he does, at least some of the time, but it isn't so.  I do not expect you to deduce, from what I have disclosed to you this evening, what I am going to say next.  I am going to spell it out for you, and then I believe I promised you a choice."

“Now we’re name-calling, Mycroft? I may not have a Holmes’ intellect, but I can spot a failed mission from 50 paces. You’re angry too, admit it.”

"If you have intuited, Doctor Watson, that I am angry with you, you are correct.  I am angry, so angry, that my brother sits awaiting what may be a death sentence simply because he couldn't do what any other lovesick fop would do and simply write for you a saccharine poem or compose a more-maudlin-than-usual air.  He jumped off a roof to save you, he endured exile and torture to maintain that safety, and when he returned you did what? If I recall correctly, there were three separate instances of violence within that first evening. Not to mention the emotional violence of introducing a fiancée into the mix. We’ll leave that aside; you couldn’t have known what it would do to him, but then you married without acknowledging in any way the cruelty of asking for not just his permission but also his approval – his public approbation. You forced him to get involved, and the only way that William Sherlock Scott Holmes can get involved is to do so with everything he is. Unfortunately, I believe that everything he is loves everything you are, and _he_ believed that as long as Mary was exposed...well, so were you.  Magnussen was right about that.  Pressure points.

"I am angry with you because you exist and because he loves you, and I would give very much to not be having this conversation with you, now or ever.  I would give very much to live in a world where you married a suburban health assistant and Sherlock remained married to his work.  Do not misunderstand me.  I have deeply appreciated your humanising influence on Sherlock, but at this moment I am looking down the barrel of the last four years, and all I see in the sight is your gun in Sherlock's hand, aimed at the head of a dead man.  

"We had a plan, you and I.  We took a calculated risk in not sharing it with Sherlock, and he's unwittingly punished us for the omission.  Don't start -- I said 'unwittingly,' and I do mean it.  After our drive back from Appledore, I am certain that my brother did not act in premeditation or with the intent to short-circuit our agenda.  It hardly matters now, except that it means that, to the extent we need him to remain in the dark, we can keep him there."  

_Well, well, Mycroft.  That got rather out of hand, did it not?  You were meant to tell him that Sherlock killed for him, did it out of misguided love and animal instinct, not take him to task for ever having existed in the first place. Softly, Mycroft. You don't want to need him for this, but you manifestly do._

"We are going to move forward with the original plan, with a slight or significant modification, and herein lies your choice.  You can go back to Mary and carry on as before. We are now in the second phase, and additional precautions will be necessary with Magnussen out of the picture. It is the path we have planned, and in many ways it is the best of our options, all of which are less than ideal.  Indeed, Sherlock's moment of _theatre guignol_ may even have endeared Mary to both of you. Alternatively, we can modify the plan to include Sherlock. I can take you to him now, you can put everything onto the table, and you can risk your lives together, in accord, and if you both live to see the end of this, you can decide together, in accord, exactly how to deal with my unforgivable incursion into your private affairs."  

John's face told him the choice was made the moment he said Sherlock's name.  

  "Good. I've considered how we should proceed. Most of the next steps will be exactly as we anticipated, though I may need to accelerate some aspects in light of Sherlock's new status and his compromised liberty. We will discuss the details in the car.

“One more thing you should know. With apologies for pressing a sore spot, I felt it necessary to disclose to Sherlock that I have known about Mary’s past since the time of your engagement. He does not know the extent of your knowledge or anything about our discussions over the past months, and he won’t know any of that unless you tell him. But he does know my overall intentions with respect to Mary, and her probable intentions with respect to me. It should make your next conversation…less difficult than it might have been. You may object to many of my decisions, but I hope that lifting the scales from Sherlock’s eyes, vis a vis Mary, is not one of them. He may believe you still are bound to her, but he now knows how dangerous she is. Do you understand me?”

John nodded, and the two men left Mycroft’s office, bound for Sherlock’s holding facility.


	12. I Can't Think of a Single Thing to Say

As John's eyes migrated back from the treeline to the tarmac's concrete, Mycroft and the heavy moved away from the John-Sherlock nucleus, toward the plane. Mary stood slightly apart, and John wondered if she could read their lips. Not that he intended to say anything of interest.  

Sherlock’s eyes were fixed directly on him, but John kept looking about as if the desolate runway would suddenly coalesce into something else. He could feel his nerves fighting with his better instincts, and wondered if Sherlock could read the extent of the struggle. _Best get this over with, I’m a shit liar._ "So, here we are." _Oh well done Watson. For all he knows this is a valediction, and you’re small-talking like a first date. Pint of bitters, Sherlock? Peckish? Packa crisps?_

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes."

 _Oh hello, did not expect that._ "Sorry?"

"That's the whole of it -- if you're looking for baby names." John froze, his gaze sharpening to a question mark for the briefest moment. _Is that a call-back, Sherlock? Me, barking out “John Hamish Watson!” like a jealous boyfriend, then scoffing it off like a joke? God it must have been transparent to her, no wonder she called my bluff at Battersea. Didn't you see it then, Sherlock? Why would you shut me up if you knew? Or did you delete it with the rest of the unnecessaries of our life together?_

 _Fine, okay, I’ll play along._ "No, we've had a scan. We're pretty sure it's a girl."   _David’s baby girl. Conceived on our stag night, didja know? When Mycroft dropped that bomb I actually laughed aloud. I’d say it was the final nail in the coffin but it was somehow sweet, like icing on the cake. The last thing that could have redeemed her, and it had nothing to do with me at all._

"Oh. Okay."

"Yeah." John looked away. _Can we talk about something other than the manifold ways in which my life is a pathetic lie? I’m meant to be concerned about your walk off the plank, not pissed enough to punch you._ "Actually, I can't think of a single thing to say."  

"No, neither can I."   _You’re probably lying there, but who cares. It’s better than baby names. How about something properly auld lang syne?_ John pulled himself up into parade rest and refocused. "The game is over."  

"The game is never over, John...but there may be some new players now. It's okay. The East Wind takes us all in the end."

 _Jesus Christ, Sherlock. Fucking drama queen. Fine, okay, I’ll bite._ "What's that?"  

"It's a story my brother told me when we were kids.  The East Wind -- this terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path.  It seeks out the unworthy...and plucks them from the Earth."  

He knew it couldn’t be a dig at Mary, but for a moment John smiled to himself, thinking, _Did you get that Mary?_

Sherlock continued, clarifying: "That was generally me." 

 _You have so much to answer for, Mycroft._ "Nice."

"He was a rubbish big brother." _Oh if you only knew._ John smiled, a soft smile and real.

He caught himself, thinking of Mary’s red coat, round belly, teary bleary Christmas eyes. She was watching, she needed to know. _Time to ask._


	13. Approach

 John had expected the cold glass-and-concrete aesthetic of latter day Bond films, but the facility where Sherlock was being held looked more like the Diogenes in its particulars, if you ignored the personnel's armoured kit and the tell-tale metal frame that said, "I may look like a mahogany door, but you say Lockdown and the gloves come off."

  He was nervous, of course he was. The last 15 minutes of the drive, Mycroft had left him to his thoughts. The original plan and the necessary modifications had all been hatched from the mind of a Holmes, and John felt confident that even Sherlock at his most obstreperous would eventually agree that it was their best option both tactically and strategically. He wasn't nervous about reading Sherlock in on the plan, if it went that way. It was everything else, and 15 minutes in the car and a few minutes walking wood-panelled corridors had not gotten him any closer to knowing even the first word he would say when he first saw that face.  

That face, oh god that face. A highlights reel of the past four years flooded back, and in every memory there was at least one Look, one genuine Look of regard, concern, interest, fascination, curiosity, affection, all the Looks Sherlock had ever bestowed on him, all transformed by Mycroft's disclosure into the same word - love? love? love? love? love? love.  He had known without knowing for years, and yet there was still the possibility that even the most astute of the brothers was wrong, had misapprehended rare affection for that rarer, singular emotion. But even that wasn't what made John nervous. Deep down, he knew Mycroft was right, right enough for it to change things, maybe change everything.  Right enough to make John's next steps, his first words to Sherlock, vital and seismic.

If Mycroft had struggled to glean John’s feelings, it wasn’t because John’s talents at dissimulation held any merit, or because those feelings were inert or unremarkable. They had simply not been allowed to surface, not since that terrible session with Ella, and even then he couldn’t make himself say what he felt. The hollowness was too much, the loss too unfair; he couldn’t bring himself to amplify that pain with closer consideration of its source. He’d lost his best friend, full stop.

But it hadn’t been full stop, and that’s what Sherlock needed to know now. John wasn’t sure what he would name it, but Mycroft was right enough about this too: They could only move forward if they truly knew one another and trusted one another, if neither one held back any of whatever it was that Mycroft was right, enough, about.  That could only happen after the conversation that was now a few steps away.  

The door opened. 


	14. And Then What?

_Ask him, John. Mary needs to know from his lips._ "So what about you, then?  Where are you actually going now?"

"Oh, some undercover work in Eastern Europe."

"For how long?" _Are you getting this Mary?_

"Six months, my brother estimates.  He's never wrong."  

_He's never wrong, Mary. Six months and one or both of you will be dead or incarcerated for real or for show. Or sooner, if that other thing pops off._

"And then what?"  _And then what? And then what? And then what? Lord preserve me from the ever-present_ And then what?

"Who knows?"

_At this moment, I am comfortable with any answer that is “Not Mary”. Wait, wait, what are you doing with your face?_

"John, there's something...I should say. I...I've meant to say always and then never have."   

_Don’t you fucking dare, Sherlock. Don’t you fucking dare do this here, now, in front of my fake wife and fake baby and God Mycroft and everyone. We will sort it when you return, when there are no more silos, but for God’s sake, now, just play the fuck along._

"Since it's unlikely we'll ever meet again--" It took all of John’s conscious effort not to look over at Mary, to keep his eyes fixed on Sherlock and his big fat perfect stupid mouth. "--I might as well say it now." 

Sigh. Beat. 

"Sherlock is actually a girl's name."  

Relief slid down his spine like honey. _YOU COCK. You mad, beautiful...oh well done you._ John was smiling now, and a real smile, and already laughing before Sherlock even finished the sentence, shaking his head with utter relief, playing it off as garden variety Sherlock-grade annoyance. 

"It's not." _It’s not. It’s the name of the best man I will ever know._

"It was worth a try."

 _Regroup, Watson. What would Duped John say? Oh right:_   "We're not naming our daughter after you." _Partly because she’s not “our daughter", but you know, details._

"I think it could work."  

_Sherlock Watson? Put a pin in that. Christ._

John watched Sherlock remove his glove and reach out his hand. They rarely stood this far apart, and it looked strange to see Sherlock, usually so dismissive of personal boundaries, extend his arm so far. John stared at the bare hand before him, for a moment losing the meaning of the gesture, unsure and agitated. _Is this it then? The end of the routine?_ Suddenly John was overwhelmed by the meanings competing for precedence -- Duped John sending off his best, broken friend to dangers unknown, Married John getting ready to finally live an unfettered life, Actual John watching Sherlock brave through what he must believe will be their final goodbye. It’s too much. A handshake is too little. John’s eyes returned to the hand before him.

"To the very best of times, John."

John hesitated for another second, then took the offered palm as if it was the hand of a fellow soldier. He was going through the motions now, _get through this, Watson, just get through it,_ but he maintained just enough awareness to notice that Sherlock…wasn’t. This was not the man who shut him down by Her Majesty’s hearthstone. There was the lightest trace of Sherlockian fingertips against John’s wrist, but it was only as the hand withdrew that the doctor’s muscle memory reminded his consciousness what those fingertips were doing. He hoped his pulse told the truth.

By the time their grips relaxed, John was fully John, Actual John, and his mind was keening for a do-over, a thousand do-overs. _Wait wait wait._                                                                                                                                                             

But he had already turned. With a final cape-flare of Belstaff, Sherlock boarded the plane.


	15. Still Life with Wing Chair

 The comparisons to the Diogenes Club did not stop at the raised-panel door, the coffered ceiling, or the quiet stillness interrupted only by the plush sound of the well-banked fire. No andirons or other tools here; must be gas and ceramic logs, then, John caught himself thinking, already taking a coward’s stroll down easier, meaningless pathways. Sherlock was shoeless, reclining in a fire-lit wing chair, steepled fingers resting on his lips, the fire glow illuminating his face and smoothing it gently, casting him as the prince of Baker Street and neither the agitated creature John had found in the snuggery at the Cross Keys Innnor a tortured assassin. He had executed a man not 5 hours earlier, but there was nothing anxious in the lines of his face or the posture of his body, just the reserved contemplation of a man whose waiting might be interrupted at any point, but who was determined to use his solitude wisely while it lasted. He was lovely. At that moment, he was the loveliest thing John had ever seen, and John felt his own face relax into warmth and affection. There was a spike of desire in the few moments it took to cross the room and stand at his side, but he schooled his expression into concerned curiosity the moment Sherlock spoke.  

"More questions, agent?  I was not disappointed by the thoroughness of your interrogation, and as you also saw everything there was to see, I'm sure my providing the same answers to the questions you've already asked will not assist you any furth--  John?"  

"Hullo, Sherlock. How are they treating you?"  

It wasn't much of an opening, but the word "interrogation" had activated both Captain and Doctor Watson, and they demanded assurance before John Hamish could have his go.  

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively, emphasizing the posh surroundings and minimizing them in the same gesture.  "Better than I deserve, certainly. Why are you here, John? They mustn't think you had anything to do wi--"  

As Sherlock spoke, John pulled a low table over to Sherlock's wing chair. He didn't even glance at the twin chair also facing the fire; if he was going to do this, he wanted to be as close to Sherlock as possible. He needed to see that face as it took in whatever words John was going to manage next.

  "No, no, Sherlock, they don't. That isn't it. That...no. I needed to see you, needed to talk to you. There's so much...."  

Here he trailed off, steadying himself by looking at the graceful hands that were now gripping the chair's arms in apprehensive anticipation. He wanted to take those hands in his own, to let Sherlock deduce him and skip over the damn words. But that wouldn't make this any more clear, and his blind reliance on Sherlock’s superpowers...well, that had been no minor ingredient in the misadventures that had led them to this sorry state.  

"I haven't prepared what I'm about to say beyond any but the most basic points, and I know I'll repeat myself or ask a question I should know the answer to, and so I'm asking you to let me stumble here without cutting me off or correcting me or telling me what I am about to say. It's important to me, Sherlock, this is important to me."    

The hands relaxed long enough to clasp one another on that bespoke suited lap, and John continued without looking up.   

"There's a great deal I should say, but first I need to ask you something.  Did you...shoot...Magnussen...for me."  

It was a question, but it wasn't _the_ question. It wasn't, "Did you shoot Magnussen because you're in love with me," because he couldn't ask that, not yet, not without giving Sherlock a soft place to land, not without building a safety net out of his own confessions first.  But he had to give Sherlock a signpost, had to let him know where this was headed, before he plunged in.  

“You know I did, John. You heard him. He was never going to leave Mary alone, which meant you would always be in danger. I couldn't allow that to continue." 

 John had not expected the answer to come with any softer disclosures, and the matter-of-fact tone did not surprise him. He nodded, finally chancing a look up into Sherlock’s face, seeing the confusion and concern there, and meeting those looks with the softest, most open care he could consciously muster while his next words stalled anxiously in his mouth.  

"Yes, yes, I know, thank you, I know. I know now. I wish there had been another way, but I see why it seemed the only option. I see how you were protecting me. I see it now."

  John swallowed. His hands were resting on the arm of Sherlock's chair, unconsciously folded into prayer. Another glance at Sherlock's face told him that for once, Sherlock was doing exactly as John had requested, and was waiting to hear him out before saying another word.  

"Sherlock, I've been so...selfish. I spent two years so absorbed in blaming myself for your death, two years filtering everything I-- felt for you into guilt and grief that I didn't examine any of its finer features. I didn't question why I felt so broken, because I had been broken before we met, and it seemed self-evident that I would feel broken again when you'd gone. When you came back, all that mattered was that I had wasted two years feeling broken and ashamed, when you could have fixed all of that with a word, letting me know it wasn't my fault and that you hadn't...hadn’t...hadn’t taken your own life. It was so much easier, that anger, than asking myself to address the sense of loss, how huge it had been, how deep. Knowing now that you were alive the whole time -- that loss is still real.  Even forgiving you for keeping me in the dark about Moriarty was easier than forgiving you for--  forgiving you for not--  forgiving you for not knowing. About me. Forgiving you for not knowing about me before I did.  You know everything, and surely if you had wanted to know, or if it had mattered to you, you would have said something, but you didn't, you didn't, you--"  

He was rambling now, and it was turning back into accusations when it shouldn't ever be that, not anymore. No room for that now.    

"I'm sorry, I don't mean it like that, like blame. That's unfair and wrong. As I said, I've been selfish, even if unconsciously, expecting you to do all of the work, and I'm so, so sorry that it took me so long. I'm here now. I will understand if it's too little too late, but I want you to know everything I know, everything I feel, even if it's all a jumbled mess. There's nothing prepared or planned about these words. Is any of this making sense?  Please say something now." It was physically torturous to make himself look up at Sherlock’s face, but he did so. He found only confusion.

"John. I can tell you are in extremis, and I do wish to help you, but I confess that I am uncertain as to what you are telling me, or what you want me to say. What do you understand? What do you know? What do you-- feel? And what does this have to do with Magnussen?”  

There was no obfuscation in Sherlock's eyes, but it was impossible to distil from them anything other than a piercing searching that John had only seen deployed at crime scenes. Once again, he waited breathlessly, hoping that a few seconds more would bring the light of epiphany and make further explanation unnecessary -- but the searching continued, unabated.  He plunged ahead.  

"After you-- left, I went back to Ella. She asked me to say out loud what I could not say to you, before. At the time, all I knew I wanted to say was _Why, Sherlock? Why why why?_ but I couldn't even do that. I couldn’t even do that, but there was more I should have said, more I could have said if I was being honest. Tonight, when I saw that video of you, pulling me out of the bonfire, and when I saw you standing outside with my gun in your hand, I thought I was going to be ill -- but not because I was seeing my life almost end, or watching you throw away yours. I felt...I felt...I knew that what I had wanted to say to you before, what I wanted to say to you even after you were gone and buried and it couldn't matter to you anymore, was that I, I, I...lo---"

  "NO, John!  Shut UP!"  The NO had been a feral scream, the UP a panicked command, underscored by Sherlock's leap from the chair and across the room. He moved so quickly and with such force that John felt the recoil as if he had been pushed.  

"You don't get to do that, John. You can't, you don't have the right, that isn't what is meant to happen. I shot Magnussen, I did that for you, but not so that you could toss your life away in a mawkish attempt to expunge unearned guilt or regret. You don't mean this, you can't, I won't let you.

“I’m not ungrateful, I don’t accuse you of play-acting, but you’re right — if you cared for me in that way, I would know! The past several months have been tumultuous for all of us, and —”     

“How can you deduce me if you won’t even fucking _look_ at me, Sherlock?” The captive tension, thwarted from a gentler path, was condensing into proper anger now, but there were tears at the corners of John’s eyes as well. Part of him wanted Sherlock to see the evidence, but the anger prevailed and a thumb and index finger swept them away as if squeezing a headache.

Despite the chastisement, Sherlock stubbornly continued to examine the grain of the wood floor. As if delivering a précis on hardwood, he stated flatly, “Thank you for visiting, John. You have no cause to feel guilt or regret on my account. Take care of Mary. Goodbye.”

John felt the bruise inflicted by his aggressive summoning rap on the holding room door, long after he’d wordlessly left the building. When he returned to his and Mary’s flat, soul-weary and defeated, the sun was illuminating the horizon, and steam was rising from the ill-kempt front garden path. Mary took one look at his face and his hand and wrongly assumed he had initiated a dust-up. He did not correct her.


	16. Boomerang

He saw Mycroft make the call, knew what it signified, but he could still hardly believe it was happening this soon, this fast. He barely had the mental bandwidth to register the exasperated tone in Mary’s voice as she insisted, “But he’s dead. I mean, you told me he was dead, Moriarty.”

 _Back on script, Watson._ “Absolutely. He blew his own brains out.”

“So how can he be back?” _Oh watch her dance!_

“Well, if he _is_ …he’d better wrap up warm.” _This is what they call a call-back, Mary._ He had to stop himself from laughing out loud as they turned and watched the plane land. “There’s an East Wind coming.”

He could feel the frustration radiating off of her as they watched Sherlock descend the jet stair. As he was shuffled into Mycroft's waiting Jag, John saw him manage a glance their way. _What does he see?_ John pulled away from Mary and faced the car, composing his face into one of encouragement and expectancy. For the first time since their fireside détente, he allowed himself to hope that things might actually fall into place. He glanced at Mary, inwardly startled by the flash of hatred she directed at the departing car before she schooled it into one of standard-issue confusion. It was going to be a very long couple of months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part II.
> 
> Part III is forthcoming. Thank you so much for reading!


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